I came back from China a few weeks ago and it was quite an adventure. First, I went to Beijing where I met my friend Ivanka (who lives in Bangkok but was in Beijing for a conference) and my brother-in-law, Jesse, who came down from Shanghai to see the sights with me since he has only been to Beijing on business. Jesse and I went to the Great Wall, which was amazing, but very crowded. Fortunately, we had a beautiful day with clear blue skies (rather unusual near Beijing) and climbing the wall was an amazing experience. We started by taking [View Full Entry]

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A few weeks ago Max and I went to Hong Kong during his school break. It was a special trip for just the two of us - Jim stayed in Bangkok with Levi and Bram. Max wanted to go to Disney and I wanted to go to Hong Kong, so it seemed like a good idea to do this trip before we leave Bangkok as Hong Kong is only about 3 hours away and flying from Bangkok to Hong Kong is inexpensive. However, staying in and eating in Hong Kong is another story! The day before we left, I came down [View Full Entry]

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The plan was simple. After last year's fiasco when we found out that Max needed major ear surgery for the removal of a cholesteatoma (a benign tumor that does a lot of damage in the middle ear) while we were on holiday in the U.S., such that we had to prolong our travels for his surgery and recovery, take our five-month-old twins with us to the hospital during the surgery, and separate the twins when Jim had to eventually return to work and didn't want to leave me by myself with two small infants and a five-year-old who needed medical care [View Full Entry]

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Hello everyone! It's been so long since I last posted and I have to admit that I find it harder to write entries - because it's been so busy, because we haven't traveled as much since the last post, and because I have a facebook page now and it's often easier to post photos and things going on there. However, there has certainly been enough happening in the last 4 months to write an entry now! This past weekend we went to Khao Yai National Park in Thailand. Jim's brother, Jesse, has been visiting us from Shanghai and we thought it [View Full Entry]

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As some of you may know, we found out in the last few weeks that we will be staying in Bangkok for one more year. We are happy about this prospect because life in Bangkok is in many ways easier than Washington, D.C., not least because help with the children is affordable. Certainly with Levi and Bram, it will be nice to have the additional help until they turn two. Also, Max's school here is very nice and starts a Spanish language program for the coming year, so we're happy for him to have the opportunity to learn another language. Levi [View Full Entry]

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I just got back from a trip to Cambodia and am so glad that I followed Jim's advice to travel to Siem Reap before we head back to the U.S. As you can imagine, it's now easier for us to do trips separately rather than as a family to certain places. I would not recommend going to Siem Reap with small children as they would probably get bored and have difficulty sightseeing in the heat. The temples that surround Siem Reap (including Angkor Wat) are so amazing and Siem Reap itself is a charming town with lovely people. I have never [View Full Entry]

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I went to Hanoi for 3 days last week with my friends April, Shanda, and Ivanka. This was my first time to Vietnam and also my first trip without my family since coming to Thailand. Hanoi was absolutely wonderful -it is a charming city. So beautiful with a lovely lake in the center, French colonial architecture, amazing food, and fantastic shopping (though this was helped by the fact that the Vietnamese currency is tied to the U.S. dollar, so it's one of the few countries left where the dollar can still purchase a lot). In fact, I enjoyed shopping in Hanoi [View Full Entry]

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So much has happened since my last blog, I don't know where to begin. First, we went back to the U.S. over the December holidays and had a good time except for the fact that we discovered Max needed emergency surgery on his ear so I had to prolong my stay there for about 3 weeks. Unfortunately, Max will need follow up surgery soon after we return to the U.S. in July and we'll know more at that point about whether he can restore his hearing, etc. Basically, he has conductive hearing loss in his left ear after a growth called [View Full Entry]

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It's hard to believe that this is our last Loy Krathong holiday (the Thai festival of lights) in Thailand. It's one of our favorites because it is so beautiful - everyone makes little floating boats (called krathongs) out of banana leaves and flowers, sticks candle and incense on them, lights them, and then puts them on the water. Also, in some places, paper lanterns are lit and released into the sky. Today (Saturday) is the actual Loy Krathong holiday, but yesterday Max celebrated it at his school. I have some pictures of that here. The weather here in Bangkok now is [View Full Entry]

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Some of you may have wondered why I haven't posted in so long and others of you know exactly the reason - the birth of our fraternal twin boys, Bram Wilson Ellis and Levi Fain Ellis, on July 2, 2007 in Singapore. For those of our friends who may not know or just learned about this wonderful event, I apologize. We didn't spread the word far and wide because of the high risk nature of the pregnancy. However, everything went well and the boys were born healthy at nearly full term (37 weeks and 5 days) and I didn't need a [View Full Entry]

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